This is definitely one of the best videos out there- I’ve been on CB, HAM, you name it- but never knew about this. Outstanding video! 👍👍👍

What a great video. Fine work Steve.

I just ran across this video and I have a Galaxy DX99V. I was about to sell it off for something else but you just convinced me to keep it. Looks like it has more bells and whistles that I did not know about.. Thank you.

Hahaha brought back so many memories this video, changing channels and having another channel ready, but they were persistent mate weren't they lol

Good video Steve, the alpha channels used to be a life saver away from the idiots back in the 90s when I was talking to friends in nearby Telford, cb was popular in the town but that came with many idiots even on the CEPT channels I lived a few miles outside the main town so signal was a bit weaker and could easily get wiped out. Used to run off to them and often go AM just to confuse some of the ones with better rigs, also was a life saver on DX during the high summer skip years where QRM was 10-30+ from Germany & North Italy.. You could continue your local conversations and have longer contacts with overseas stations instead of them vanishing into the noise. Amazing times..

Loved the Alpha channels back in the day... when everything was manic, busy and full of idiots...was always nice to flick the 20kc shift switch to a pre-arranged Alpha channel and be one of very few there to continue a conversation in peace. Great video mate

Thanks Steve, wish I'd have found you a few years ago !!!!!

Hi Steve! Very Good Radio!

Cheers for the great video.

Fun fact: If you bought a Superstar 2000 or a Hygain 8795 they had 4 banks of 50 channels that are in sequential order that cover the alphas out of the box with no modifications.

To be honest i didn't realized that, so thanks for explaining Mr Stevens. Sometimes i look up your old vids, especially 2014 where you became a ham, and i wonder if you have aspiration to become full licensed or the 12 w on ssb/cb has changed all that...73

Real easy to understand if u just had a old Tram D201 with slider channel active. In US we called it sliding between channels. Could go below 1 to 56

We call that an RC channel in the states. If I'm not mistaken, that one specifically is the higher power allotment RC channel of the 5 or 6 rc channels within the cb band. Problem with this strategy is the channel jammers will likely hear the bleedover and find you pretty quickly.

Hi Steve, On that chart, the channels 14 and 15 on the "upper list" ( just below 27.555) are both listed as being on 27.585. Is that a misprint?

The of get F low frequency channel All the different frequencies Thank you very much very interesting

In USA Alpha Channels 3A, 7A, 11A, 15A & 19A Use to be back in the 80's used for remote alarms & radio controlled toys. When you key up on mic sometimes you can set one off & you hear tone on them. Now it's empty space & many CB users use it. I had the same Super Star 360 FM back then & you can kill the Channel 9 switch & put a 10 KC jump in it which I did back then.

In the United States the seven Alpha channels were dedicated to radio control like door openers and such as that garage door openers but that was many many many years ago and since then leave fell in that falling out of use and everybody forgot about them but they're still there that explains the Alpha channels.

Back in the day I had a slider that let me get the entire band and 2 channels below it. It was a simple fix, just short out a resistor.

O i miss the days when the rig was that busy you had to jump on alpha channels to get away from a mike keyer etc i had an old ham concorde 2 and when it was time to say go to the usual channel we were away down the super low clarafier turned all the way to the left kc shift at 12 oclock position or somwere along those lines or if the pest was local and the breaker you were talking to could just switch to ssb and talk and bleed over there 40 channels ..Great fun

for info - the alpha channels on the mid band, we put there for the 5 radio control channels,, if you have an old AM 27mhz rc set (now illegal) you will see the alpha channels frequencies written on the crystals and each has its own colour code, the reason they also appear on the low and high bands Etc, is they use the same PLL system for all bands, so they mirror the mid band, secondly, the unusual channel arrangement around channels 23-24-25 is a little more interesting,, originally US CB had only 23 channels, and 23 was used as an emergency channel and also where you could contact the police, to keep it clear from 'bleed over' it was decided to leave a 20khz gap between channels 22 and 23, later when 40 channels were introduced, channels 24 and 25 were slotted into that gap and so we have a bit of a mix up going through those few channels, and again, this is mirrored on the low and high bands etc for the same reason the 'alpha' channels are. hope this is useful so some of you, 73's for now

7:31 gave me a hell of a start ,damn it man ......! what the hell was that a taz-devil, racoon , or just a little dog?

same rig as ive got. ss6900. good radio

Cheers Steve, nicely explained , Sub'd you, Presubably then you can get the A's using VFO Mode too ?

The gaps you see there are, at least in North America, reserved for remote control toys and are not accessible by FCC approved CB Radios.

Is this the same as side band ssb?

In USA: Yes A channels are the 5 R/C channels . Every band skips these 5 ch"s A ch"s that's what a 10khz switch is for on your Export rig . Also in 10 khz steps : Upper channels anything above 27.405 Lower channels anything below 26.965 1990s DX channels international was: 26.285 upper sideband "which people forgot about "the Lima delta club call freq". And 27.425-555 was used for LSB DX. 26.915 AM is DX call . All went dead? You do not use only 27.385 LSb for DX suppose! You use 36,37,38,39,40 LSB maybe people wise up use it again. FM has not been used per sale of president radios here.

otherwise known as "16 Australian" from the old 18 channel Australian cb radios :)

The Alpha Channels were for my vintage RC cars and boats. "Not for for CB"

The Alphas were never legal or official but certainly added something... CB was a great gateway drug to ham radio way back when ;-)

Super Bowl!!!!! Ch6.. booyyy

thats a 6900n super star on your bench right?

Hidden Chanel's. On the upper portion of the CB. ( In usa were ment for the civilian aviation folks . For search and rescue ) and were guarded by users of civil air patrol.squads. for got to mention that they showed up on my door step and gave me a piece of there mind (triangulation) back in the early 70's never will forget it trucks with big antennae (fat curly coils in the middle) were every where. My memory of skipped or black spots on my radios dial. Was Scarry. Kv4li

What are the channels

10-41, 10-4

Why not buy a radio that runs from 26 Mhz to 28 Mhz (kenwood, yeasu, icom) Greetings Yvan, Brugge, belgium

I haven't president Andy too CB radio do you know how I can change the wattage on that and also the modulation output because I can't find it anywhere and the company is got this big secret where they won't tell me how to get into their service menu to adjust values. Can you help it all and thanks for sharing your videos

How do i get my own frequency

when are you going to get around to just explaining WHAT an Alpha channel is?... which should have been the very first thing you talked about forgetting all the other "talk" about the good old days.

you have to talk so much just show us

Four minutes into this an you still haven´t gotten to the point. Bye bye.

Great stuff Steve. Your right i never knew they were there. I went from straight 40 FM rigs in the 80's (SSB was way too much cash) to HF radios now. As you say on HF you can go anywhere. I did wonder why the 6900 has that 10 KHZ shift button. Thanks for the vid.